Hero improvement
I played around in the battle of the giants, testing different maxed out builds to see what beats what. I assumed that you get a 60,60,60 hero and that you also get 160 points from the items for both attack and defence. You also get another 40 points on speed from the items. I assume both players have the same items and same bonuses, so i dont take them into account at all. #Full defence hero = 220, 320, 100 #Full attack hero = 320, 220, 100 #Defence+a little bit speed hero = 220, 300, 120 #Attack+a little bit speed hero = 300, 220, 120 #Attack+moderate speed hero = 280, 220, 140 #Full defence > defence+little speed #Full defence wins, because both heroes have relatively too low attack(compared to their defence) and therefore first strike doesnt do much damage and in the long run, the extra defence pays off. This is 1 of the few scenarios where first strike and thefore speed is so weak. Even wasting only 10 points on speed will put you on a disadvantage against a full defence build. The attack is simply too low for the first strike to make a difference. #Only if you put less than 5 points in speed and still manage to outspeed the enemy, you will get an advantage. But in the real world 5 points dont offer a significant chance to get a first strike against a full defence hero, since they can be easily offsetted by items and/or base hero stats. Results *'Almost everything > full attack' **Without first strike, a full attack build will lose against everything(except full speed :P). It's also the only thing that the defence+little speed build can beat. Or you can be lucky against a full defence or full attack build and get first strike and win. *'Attack+little speed > full defence' **High attack combined with first strike is enough to beat a full defence hero. Generally with the correct amount of speed, attack beats everything. *'Full defence = full attack' *'Attack+little speed = defence+little speed' **These builds are equal. It all comes down to who has first strike. *'Attack+moderate speed > attack+little speed' *'Attack+moderate speed > defence+little speed' *'Almost everything else > attack+moderate speed' General Remarks #First strike wins but if you wasted too many points on speed, all other low speed builds will kick your butt. #It's obvious that defence and speed dont mix too well(except against full attack) and that attack without a little bit of speed is useless(you need first strike in order to capitalize on your high attack). Also note that first strike means first strike on all rounds, although arguably 1st's round first strike is more important. #Speed is a risky and addictive attribute. You never know how much you really need in order to use it. The ideal is to always have +1 speed compared to the enemy but since it's impossible to do that(or almost impossible, you could check the hero stats through the rank screen), i used 20 and 40 speed increments that should give a fairly clear speed advantage. Once someone starts putting points into speed, he is leaving himself vulnerable. If you barely outspeed the enemy, then good, you will win. If you outspeed the enemy by a lot, you will lose because you wasted too many points. #And since speed and first strike are essential for attack to work, people prefer full defence builds, which are simplier and less risky. I didnt bothered testing attack+defence builds, because attack without first strike, is useless. So if you want to use attack, you need some speed as well. So there is no attack+defence build but there are all around builds. #Balanced builds(for example 260,240,140) are good or bad against everything. It's really important to get first strike with them, as it is with high attack builds. So you need high speed and high attack. The efficiency of your build then depends on how much speed the enemy build has. Against a full defence build, this build wont do that well. But against an attack+little speed build, it will win. Another balanced build would be to sacrifice some speed for some extra attack(280, 240, 120). This build can, barely, beat full defence builds but it is really vulnerable against attack+litte speed builds. #All in all, the game is fairly balanced, something which i am surprised to notice. Current highest level heroes are a mixed bag but i think the second generation heroes that are being levelled up atm will be defence heavy. An attack+little speed builds can beat full defence ones. And so can balanced builds with little speed(instead of moderate speed). But defence is the "safe" stat. You dont need to be mixing speed in it to be efficient. It always is efficient. On the other hand attack needs speed due to first strike. If you get just enough speed, you can beat anything with attack. But getting too much speed or too little speed and your attack will be useless. #Some might say "wow, we really didnt need a huge post like this to tell us things that we already know". Well, sure things came out as expected. Stats work pretty much as i expected them to work. But there are shitload of people yelling "defence beats everything bro" which simply isnt true. The only reason defence beats everything is because people dont have extreme attack with not too much speed heroes. And getting a build like this just right(not too much speed, not too little speed) is crucial to beating full defence builds. But if the current trent of full defence continues, you will only need like 10spd and shitload of attack to beat all these full defence heroes. And this is what i meant about the metagaming evolving and changing. #'PS Note that we havent taken into account the 3minute time restriction. For example if you are a full def hero and you are attacking something, then yes, you might eventually win if you had unlimited time but because you only have 3minutes, time will run out and you will lose.' #Full attack has an advantage over full defense when it comes to farming NPCs or low level players. Basically, you just win the fight with the first strike and thus you have no units lost. This is more efficient with ranged units. category:strategycategory:game mechanics